[1] Blackwood's fly on the wall approach in this early short film marked the starting point of the observational filmmaking style he would become known for.
[1] Starting with his documentation of Christo's Wrapped Coast project in Little Bay, Australia in 1969, Blackwood began a series of monographic films with artists such as David Hockney, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston, Isamu Noguchi, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg.
[3] Staying true to his observational filmmaking style, Blackwood hit the streets and made Summer in the City (1969), a film documenting the culture of the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
[3] In 1985, Michael completed his feature documentation of New York City, the monstrous Empire City (1985), a look at the political, economic, and social state of Manhattan with appearances from David Rockefeller, Norman Mailer, Ed Koch, Phillip Johnson, Keith Haring, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Papp, Donald Trump, Brooke Astor, and Herman Badillo, among others.
The film took an honest look at the economic disparities between the rich and the poor, political struggles, and the ever-present art scene that defined New York City in the 1980s.
Blackwood's core belief is that in the cinema lies the power to enlighten the viewer, and thus reconcile the masses with the art of the postwar world.